First Cup of Coffee - April 16, 2021

Today is a special anniversary of my younger self. A bit about ramping up into writing a book by giving yourself room to perambulate. Also, the business of publishing and evaluating money now vs money later.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy, author of Fantasy Romance and Romantic Fantasy. I'm here with my first cup of coffee. That's good. Um today is Friday. Yay! And I have to adjust because the sun should be rising. There, that's a little better. And the window behind me. Today is Friday, April 16th. Um a sunny day today after a stormy week, but um still pretty cool, a little windy, so I'm still inside. So April 16th. Special day in the personal history of Jeffy. Uh loathies many moons ago when I was but 16 years old. I believe that's right. April 16th? When I was 16. Yeah. Uh was the date of the Sadie Hawkins dance at my high school. Which, you know, it's so funny to look at that now. Sadie Hawkins was from a comic strip, was it? Something like that. Uh and the Sadie Hawkins dance was when the girls would invite the boys to the dance, as opposed to the apparently entrenched tradition where only boys can invite girls. Where does that come from anyway? I mean, it's like I realize that that's like part of the of the patriarchy, right? You know, that it's like, but what does that rule serve that um that women can't, I guess it's like women can't control their own destiny, right? You're not supposed to put yourself forward and and select your mate that you are to be selected. But Sadie Hawkins dance, the rules were suspended. And it wasn't like we observed them slavishly anyway. It was a holdover from another era. And there was certainly plenty of times, I'm sure, that girls invited boys to the dance. But for Sadie Hawkins, it was, I don't know, du rigueur expected. And we I was terribly in love with Kevin Wrights. Hi, Kevin, if you're out there. I know he listens sometimes. We are still friends, Lothi's many years later, which is um something I greatly value. And I was so in love with him, and he had been dating a couple of other girls. Um, it's a long, long and sordid history. And um but I invited him to go to the dance with me. And he had just broken up with the other girl. Well, kind of, except that he still had to escort her to prom. Um that was kind of the you know, he had promised to and kept his promises. Uh so I ended up going to prom with somebody else. But uh excuse me. Which was still fun. Mark Simchuk, who I highly doubt is out there. I haven't seen Mark Simchuk in many, many, many years. Decades. Actually hadn't thought about Mark Simchuk until this very moment. Uh, but it would be funny if this somehow made it a way around to him. But you know what's funny is I really don't remember much about the dance itself. Uh what I remember most is that after the dance, Kev and I drove up to Genesee in the mountains, because this was in Denver, to see the stars. And, you know, it's funny to me now how often we drove distances to go see the stars. I recall on another date with a boy, uh different boy, uh driving up to Wyoming over the border. We're like determined to drive up to over the border and see the stars, which was even better. But so Kevin and I drove up to Genesee, uh, which was not that far from Denver, you know, from where we were uh out in Aurora. Kevin always gets on me that I say Denver instead of Aurora. He feels like I should have loyalty to the fact that we actually grew up in Aurora, Colorado, which is a burb of Denver, uh, and he feels like I should be a uh a stalwart champion of uh Aurora birth. And I've explained to him more than once that nobody's heard of Aurora Colorado. His counter-argument is, of course, is because none of us claim it's like, well, there's a reason for that. Sorry, Kev. I don't think I'm ever going to be the champion of Aurora Colorado that you want me to be. Denver has always had my uh fidelity. Some of that is my mother's prejudice because when we moved into the house she bought when I was six, it was in Denver. And then it was part of an area that the city of Denver ceded to Aurora, to everybody's um great dismay, because um Aurora was not a she-she address, which was part of why Denver ceded it to Aurora because it was like the higher income addresses, and they needed that money for their coffers, and now more Aurora has come up in the world. I'll grant them that. But anyway, so we drove up to Genesee, probably half an hour, 45-minute drive, and parked. Parked in my little Honda Accord because Kev's I think VW bug was not working as it often wasn't. It was a Baja bug, which meant that the engine was uncovered, and we referred to it as the Baja Humbug. Uh, I had many adventures getting stranded in various places with that. The gas gauge didn't work, so when Kev would uh check to see if there was much gas in it, he would cruise down the street to his house, um, turn off the engine, roll to a stop and hit the brake card, and we would listen for the sloshing of the gas on the tank. I'm I'm kind of amazed at this now. So um we pulled off at s at this pass. Kev might remember the name of it. We did for a long time. Um little pull, you know, exit off of the interstate, and uh, we looked at the stars and we kissed Reader. I kissed him, he kissed me, and it was it was our first kiss, and it was all the sparkly fantabulousness that one would hope for. And so for for the rest for the rest of the time. April 16th was our Anna Anniversary. Um sweet story, huh? Back in the day. Funny to think about now. So, um, let's see. This week's earrings or this week's. I'm a little tired today. Um I'm sort of getting back in the groove and all of those things. Today's earrings are these um from uh the Santa Domingo tribe, I believe, over at Black Mesa. They are sort of um a teardrop shape with a brown stone at the bottom, which I'm not sure what it is, and turquoise at the top, and then a stripe through the middle of black with a square of silver. And to be honest, I don't like these earrings. Um, I keep them, and I actually wore them recently, I think maybe for the first time, because they went with what I was wearing, and I've been trying to wear different earrings, and I thought I should give these poor earrings a chance. I keep them because David gave them to me. And David has given me many, many pairs of earrings, all of which I love, and I love them in great part because he gave them to me, but usually he has great taste and gets me exactly the thing, maybe great taste is the wrong way to put it. He he knows what I like and he gives me the things I like. These I do not like, and he bought them under w without me being there, but sort of strained circumstances, and I believe he oh no, I've always been convinced that he picked them not because he thought I would like them, uh, but because he needed to get me a gift. And they were for Christmas, and uh I don't know, I'm I'm conflicted about these earrings. Uh they do not have happy feelings for me, and so I can't tell if it's like I just don't like them because of that or or what, but I keep them anyway because David gave them to me. I might have to get rid of them eventually. What do you guys think? Part of my eventual auction of um earrings I don't want to have any longer or never wear. Boy, that sun's really bright this morning, isn't it? I have to sort of re-angle again. Um so I got a lot more done on Bright Familiar yesterday, uh, just working my way back into the characters' heads. And I got more than 1,500 words. I'm still sort of in my buffer zone. I need to not squander my buffer zone because I might need it later. But I ramped up so much from Wednesday to Thursday that I tried to give myself a little room for that. Uh, because I also went to Ryder Coffee yesterday and had a really great conversation, particularly with Jim Sorensen. Hi, Jim. I don't think Jim ever listens to this. Uh, but Jim's down in Albuquerque and he drove up. And for um, I don't know, more than an hour it was just the two of us. For various reasons, other people couldn't make it. Uh Emily Ma came towards the end and brought her friend Ruth for us to meet. She got her first vaccination yesterday. Thank you. Is it just the one? Might be just the one. Um so anyway, Jim and I had a really good conversation and we talked about all kinds of things. And um he was he was very helpful, very helpful to me. Um yeah, I I don't even we just sort of talked about financial stuff and the business of writing and making choices about, you know, how do you choose on on money? Because very often in publishing it becomes a question of money now or money later. Uh, for example, um, Tor.com rather famously has, I don't know if it's famous, but a lot of people are aware of it, has a a deal that they offer many authors. And and when I say dork, tor.com, they it it's more than just the website. It gets confusing, but they've they're like a whole publishing imprint on their own now. But at any rate, they offer either a fairly low advance. It used to be $2,000, and I think now it's $4,000. Excuse me, $4,000 and reduced royalties after that, or you can forego the advance and go for a higher royalty percentage. And so it becomes a choice, right, between money now or money later. And you're you're essentially gambling on whether or not you think your work will be successful. Um and you know, there are some people who are such traditionalists in the community that they will always, always, always say, take the advance. You need to take the advance, and all that matters is the advance. And I have never loved the advanced model because it's basically alone, right? You know, when you receive an advance, it's an advance against royalties. And so only after you earn enough to earn out that advance. So only after the book makes, if you get a $2,000 advance, it's only after the book earns you $2,000 in royalties, which is like your percentage of what the book sells for, then do you start getting more money again? And it's something that many authors are confused about. Um, I had a friend um way back in the day, back when I was in Laramie, who got herself a really nice book deal. It was right, it was for an essay collection, and it was right before things kind of crashed. And she got a $75,000 advance. And oh my god, she blew this money, people. Um and I adored her. I thought she was lovely. Um she spent a big chunk of it hiring this very famous band to play her boyfriend's birthday, which is kind of cliche, but there it is. Um, and she had said to me at one point that, you know, sort of in this aggrieved tone of voice, she said, Oh, I can't wait until this book earns out its advance, so I start making some money on it again because I'm broke. And I don't, you know, it takes a long time to earn out $75,000. Unless you're a blockbuster, and and her book was not, then it um, you know, a lot of times you're just never gonna see that money. And so Jim and I were talking about an offer I've received and where I would get a certain percentage of royalties after they've after it's they've been paid back their production costs. And so I was explaining this to Jim, and he goes, so never. And it's like that's really the way to approach it on things like this, because it's um like, yeah, probably never. There it there's a chance, you know, and and it's nice if it comes, but it's better to treat that as gravy because that that money later may not show up. Now, in other cases, like I know a couple of people with the toric.com thing where they decided to go with the no advance higher royalty percentage, where it's worked out very, very well for them. But that's to me a little bit different because you're gambling on how your work will eventually sell. When you're in a situation where somebody's like paying production costs, and then you are gonna get royalties like maybe someday after they've paid off all their expenses, it's just better to assume never. So I know there's a lot of gradations to this and nuance, and that's why it's it's good to be able to talk to somebody else about it and weigh the ups and downs and so forth. There's a lot of reasons for choosing to take a deal. There's a lot of reasons for choosing not to. And the thing is, is that especially for newbie writers, at the beginning, you are just so delighted to receive an offer that you don't weigh that stuff at all. It's like they want to give me money for my work, yes, yay! And you don't care if it's not enough or if the terms are questionable and so forth. You're just all yes, a thousand times yes. And Jane and Bingley won't care that the servants steal all their silver because they were in love. But uh, if we are talking about business, then we do need to care. So, um, so yeah. Uh I I need to wind up because uh I've got Safwa board meeting this morning, and I want to get an hour of writing before I do that. But I I do want to mention that um, oh, I know what it was. So that was my little um little bit of vamping to to get through. Uh one of the things I'm doing to work myself back into the characters' heads on bright familiar is I'm just letting myself write whatever. I'm doing a conversation between them, and who knows how much of it I will keep. And I think that that is one way to um to get that flow going again. Getting that flow going is really critical, getting the characters so that they're speaking and so forth. Um so I just let them talk about whatever they want to talk about, knowing that I can go back and edit it later. So I thought I would mention that in case it's a helpful piece of advice for all of you. And on that note, I am going to go. Uh, I hope you all have a fabulous weekend. I will be um online a lot this weekend doing Flights of Foundry. Come on by. Uh, also the workshop for the Aged to Perfection romance writers tomorrow. And uh otherwise, I will talk to you all on Monday. You all take care. Bye bye.